


in, in, out through the mouth

by ryloe (orphan_account)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Blood, Drinking, Fake AH Crew, Guns, M/M, Non-Romance, Smoking, Symbolic Emo Bullshit, i don't know how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 00:45:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10478262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ryloe
Summary: Ryan sits on top of a building and reflects on the recent past.Title from Flashlight - The Front Bottoms





	

Ryan doesn’t drink but sometimes late at night he smokes. He chain smokes late into the night, until the sun peeks over the horizon but you won’t see it until much later because of the buildings and the smog. The city deceives you into thinking that maybe this time the night won’t end. But sitting on top of the buildings, Ryan can see it. Far away, past the city limits and past human limits the earth still spins and the sun still seems to rise every morning. He blows smoke at it in a useless act of defiance. 

He doesn’t know why he smokes. Maybe it would be simpler to drink, given that smoking is all the detriment and none of the benefits. But alcohol won’t wash blood from your hands, he knows, he's tried. Hydrogen peroxide is probably your best bet but it only leaves an outer sense of clean that he knows only masks it as well as the skull he pulls on every night masks his own face. 

Repentance is no longer an option. Perhaps that should scare him. He knows, however, that were there a god then he would not have been made like this. Not with a drive for slowly dripping the life force from a man who only might deserve it. Not with the guilt that he feels, and observes, on the other side of his walls. Objectively, he's a mess, and subjectively he thinks maybe throwing himself off the building into the traffic might be his only way to repent. 

Geoff tells him he does good work. He trusts Geoff, but he also knows that the leash that he’s kept on is cleverly hidden so as not to show just how short it is. He knows that Geoff’s worried about him flying off the handle. He taps ash off the side of the concrete that juts up around the roof. Thinks about how close he really is to breaking as rays of sunlight break over the landscape. Behind him, he knows the moon still lingers. It watches and knows that it must wait. Let nature run its course. 

He thinks about Ray. Thinks about how the last time he saw him was with a gunshot wound in his side, how Ray had reached for him but never made contact before he had run. By the time he’d got back to the penthouse all of Ray’s things were gone. After that, Ryan had been angry. Begged Geoff to let him hunt the little bastard down, make him feel the pain that Ryan had when Ray pointed a gun and pulled the trigger. He thought maybe Ray had missed at first, but Ray didn’t miss. He hadn’t wanted to kill Ryan, just hurt him enough. At the time it had been enough. More than enough. So much that Ryan had left, testing his own loyalty and tugging on his leash. 

Searching for Ray was never going to be easy. Even harder when Ray knew he would be sought after. It was during his search for Ray that Ryan had met Jeremy. He lights a new cigarette and stubs out his old one, throws it into the open air and watches it plummet to the ground. He can’t see it hit the ground, but he knows it does. Jeremy hadn’t caught Ryan off guard, but something close to it. He’d explained his purpose. Geoff had sent him, that he was serving as an extended hand. Ryan hadn’t spared more than a few moments before taking the hand. They’d fucked that night, fast and urgent in Ryan’s motel room. 

Jeremy was never quite, but always close. Something that seemed like Ryan was settling, when really he knew that Jeremy was more than he deserved. 

The drive back felt something like normal, or what normal seemed like it could be. He knew, however, what Jeremy felt. He felt like he was a replacement, and Ryan didn’t have the words to explain that it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t like that. He didn’t have the words to tell Jeremy that he was close enough, good enough. He wanted more than a replacement. It’d been months, he wanted to tell him. We weren’t like that. 

He couldn’t quite place what ‘that’ was, exactly. 

Facing Geoff was, like always, easier than expected. The leash was shorter this time, he could tell. Couldn’t have Ryan flying off the handle again, we’re expanding and we need to be more stable. Ryan understood. 

It was hard, to help Jeremy understand. He thinks about how Jeremy had avoided him in the weeks since they’d been back. How he’d been throwing himself into jobs, doing more, trying to prove something. How when Ryan had propositioned him, he’d laughed and dismissed him. 

“I’m not him, you know,” 

How Ryan had caught his wrist, pushed a hand through his hair. 

“I know.”

He stubs out his last cigarette and backs away from the edge of the roof.

**Author's Note:**

> do you understand the 'Symbolic Emo Bullshit' tag now


End file.
